UK not ready to join US air campaign against ISIS

An image grab taken from a propaganda video uploaded on June 11, 2014 by jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) allegedly shows ISIL militants gathering at an undisclosed location in Iraq's Nineveh province. (AFP Photo) / AFP

UK government sources have expressed surprise at US media reports indicating that Britain is willing to take part in an air campaign alongside the US against Islamic State (IS) fighters in Syria.

Downing Street said there had been no request from Washington for
the UK to contribute to air strikes yet. "Our focus has not
been on air strikes. It is not under discussion at the
moment,” a Uk government spokeswoman said. She also insisted
that the UK would not send combat troops to Iraq.

The British response followed a report in The New York Times,
citing unnamed US officials as saying that Britain and Australia
would be willing to join an air campaign against forces of the
Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq and Syria.

According to reports, the US is poised to ask Britain and
Australia to support air strikes in Northern Iraq.

President Obama is set to authorize airstrikes and aid drops
around the Iraqi town of Amerli, home of Iraq's Turkmen minority,
where 12,000 people have been under siege by IS extremists for
two months. US officials have compared that siege to the similar
humanitarian crisis faced by thousands of Yazidis who were
trapped on Mount Sinjar.

Nickolay Mladenov, the United Nations special representative for
Iraq, has said that the situation in Amerli "demands
immediate action to prevent the possible massacre of its
citizens."

It comes after repeated calls from UK politicians and several
senior figures in the military for Britain to support air
strikes.

Currently, the RAF's role has been limited to surveillance and
aid drops and PM David Cameron has categorically ruled out ground
troops in Iraq. “We have been working together with the US
already in terms of providing surveillance,” the
spokesperson said, adding, however that the UK is not currently
cooperating with the US on air strikes.

UK ministers have not ruled out air strikes, but they have
consistently played down the prospect of Britain getting involved
in a full-scale military campaign.

"Britain is not going to get involved in another war in
Iraq," Cameron told BBC1's Breakfast program last week.
"We are not going to be putting boots on the ground. We are
not going to be sending in the British army."

Britain is already supplying weapons from Eastern European
countries to Kurdish peshmerga fighters, and Philip Hammond, the
Foreign Secretary, has indicated that it could also offer
training in Baghdad. Officials have repeatedly insisted that
Britain's focus is on helping the Iraqis and Kurds fight IS by
providing assistance with surveillance and supplying equipment.

Air strikes would represent a significant escalation in Britain's
role in Iraq.

The US, meanwhile, has been carrying out air strikes against IS
targets in Iraq. Air strikes have enabled Iraqi troops and
Kurdish peshmerga fighters to retake the strategic Mosul dam.

The US has begun reconnaissance flights over Syria in preparation
for a possible cross-border expansion of its aerial campaign
against IS militants in Iraq.

IS fighters responsible for the execution of American journalist
James Foley implied on Tuesday that another war correspondent,
Steven Sotloff, may come to harm if the US did not stop
airstrikes in Iraq.